Capitalism in Agriculture

Second Article

InChapter IX of his book (“The Growing Difficulties of Commercial
      Agriculture”) Kautsky proceeds to analyse thecontradictionsinherent in capitalist agriculture. From the objections which Mr. Bulgakov
      raises against this chapter, which we shall examine later, it is evident
      that the critic has not quite properly understood the general significance
      of these “difficulties.” There are “difficulties” which,
      while being an “obstacle” to the full development of rational
      agriculture, at the same timestimulate the developmentof
      capitalist agriculture. Among the “difficulties” Kautsky
      points, for example, to the depopulation of the countryside. Undoubtedly,
      the migration from the countryside of the best and most intelligent
      workers is an “obstacle” to the full development of rational
      agriculture; but it is equally indubitable that the farmers combat this
      obstacle bydeveloping technique, e.g., by introducing machinery.

Kautskyinvestigates the following “difficulties”: a) ground
      rent; b) right of inheritance; c) limitation of right of inheritance;
      entailment (fideicommissum,

	Anerbenrecht)[15];

      d) the exploitation of the
      countryside by the town; e) depopulation of the countryside.

Groundrent is that part of surplus-value which remains after the average
      profit on invested capital is deducted. The monopoly of landed property
      enables the landowner to appropriate this surplus, and the price of land
      (=capitalised rent)keepsrent at the level it has once
      reached. Clearly, rent “hinders” the complete rationalisation
      of agriculture: under the tenant farmer system the incentive to
      improvements,etc., becomes weaker, and under the mortgage system the major part of the
      capital has to be invested, not in production, but in the purchase of
      land. In his objection Mr. Bulgakov points out, first, that there is
      “nothing terrible” in the growth of mortgage debts. He
      forgets, however, that Kautsky, not “in another sense,” but
      precisely in this sense, has pointed to the necessary increase in
      mortgages even when agriculture is prospering (see above, First Article,
      II). Here, Kautsky does not raise the question as to whether an increase
      in mortgages is “terrible” or not, but asks what difficulties
      prevent capitalism from accomplishing its mission. Secondly, in
      Mr. Bulgakov’s opinion, “it is hardly correct to regard increased
      rent only as an obstacle.... The rise in rent, the possibility of raising
      it, serves as an independent incentive to agriculture, stimulating
      progress of technique and every other form” of progress
      (“process” is obviously a misprint). Stimuli to progress in
      capitalist agriculture are:

      population growth, growth of competition, and growth of, industry; rent,
      however, is a tribute exacted by the landowner from social development,
      from the growth of technique. It is, therefore, incorrect to state, that
      the rise in rent is an “independentincentive” to
      progress. Theoretically, it is possible for capitalist production to
      exist in the absence of private property in land, i.e., with the land
      nationalised (Kautsky, S. 207), when absolute rent would not exist at
      all, and differential rent would be appropriated by the state. This
      would not weaken the incentive to agronomic progress; on the contrary,
      it would greatly increase it.

“Therecan be nothing more erroneous than to think that it is in the
      interest of agriculture to force up (in die Höhetreiben) the
      prices of estates or artificially to keep them at a high level,” says
      Kautsky. “This is in the interest of the present
      (augenblicklichen) landowners, of the mortgage banks and the real
      estate speculators, but not in the interest of agriculture, and least of
      all in the interest of its future, of the future generation of
      farmers” (S. 199). As to the price of land, it is capitalised rent.

Thesecond difficulty confronting commercial agriculture is that it
      necessarily requires private property in land. This leads to the
      situation in which the land is either split up on passing to heirs (such
      parcellisation evenleading insome placesto technical retrogression) or is burdened
      by mortgages (when the heir who receives the land pays the co-heirs money
      capital which he obtains by a mortgage on the land). Mr. Bulgakov
      reproaches Kautsky for “overlooking, in his exposition, the positive
      side” of the mobilisation of the land. This reproach is absolutely
      ground less; for in the historical part of his book (in particular Chapter
      III of Part I, which deals with feudal agriculture and the reasons for its
      supersession by capitalist agriculture), as well as in the practical

      part,[1]Kautsky clearly pointed out to his readers the positive side and the
      historical necessity of private property in land, of the subjection of
      agriculture to competition, and, consequently, of the mobilisation of the
      land. The other reproach that Mr. Bulgakov directs at Kautsky, namely,
      that he does not investigate the problem of “the different degrees
      of growth of the population in different places,” is one that we simply
      cannot understand. Did Mr. Bulgakov really expect to find studies in
      demography in Kautsky’s book?

Withoutdwelling on the question of entailment, which, after what has been
      said above, represents nothing new, we shall proceed to examine the
      question of the exploitation of the countryside by the
      town. Mr. Bulgakov’s assertion that Kautsky “does not contrapose the
      positive to the negative sides and, primarily, the importance of the town
      as a market for agricultural produce,” is in direct contradiction to the
      facts. Kautsky deals very definitely with the importance of the town as a
      market for agricultureon the very first pageof the chapter
      which investigates “modern agriculture” (S. 30, et seq.). It
      is precisely to “urban industry” (S. 292) that Kautsky
      ascribes the principal role in the transformation of agriculture, in its
      rationalisation,

      etc.[2]

Thatis why we cannot possibly understand how Mr. Bulgakov could repeat in
      his article (page 32,Nachalo, No. 3) these very ideasas
      i/in opposition to Kautsky!This is aparticularly striking example of this stern critic’s false exposition of
      the book he is subjecting to criticism. “It must not be forgotten,”
      Mr. Bulgakov says to Kautsky admonishingly, that “part of the values
      [which flow to the towns] returns to the countryside.” Anyone would think
      that Kautsky forgets this elementary truth. As a matter of fact Kautsky
      distinguishes between the flow of values (from the countryside to the
      town) with or without an equivalent re turn much more clearly than
      Mr. Bulgakov attempts to do. In the first place, Kautsky examines the
      “flow of commodity values from the country to the town without
      equivalent return (Gegenleistung)” (S. 210) (rent which is spent
      in the towns, taxes, interest on loans obtained in city banks) and justly
      regards this as the economic exploitation of the countryside by the
      town. Kautsky further discusses the question of the efflux of values with
      an equivalent return, i.e., the exchange of agricultural produce for
      manufactured goods. He says: “From the point of view of the law of
      value, this efflux does not signify the exploitation of

      agriculture[3];

      actually, however, in the same way as the above-mentioned factors, it
      leads to its agronomic(stofflichen) exploitation, to the
      impoverishment of the land in nutritive substances” (S. 211).

Asfor the agronomic exploitation of the countryside by the town, here too
      Kautsky adheres to one of the fundamental propositions of the theory of
      Marx and Engels, i.e., that the antithesis between town and country
      destroys the necessary correspondence and interdependence between
      agriculture and industry, and that with the transition of capitalism to a
      higher form this antithesis must

      disappear.[4]Mr. Bulgakov thinks that Kautsky’s opinion on the agronomic exploitation
      of the country by the town is a “strange” one; that, “at
      all events, Kautsky has here stepped on the soil of absolute
      fantasy”(sic!!!).What surprises us is that Mr. Bulgakov
      ignores the fact that Kautsky’s opinion, which he criticises, is identical
      with one of the fundamental ideas of Marx and Engels. The reader would be
      right in concluding that Mr. Bulgakov considers the idea of the abolition
      of the antithesis between town and country to be “absolute fantasy.”
      If such indeed is the critic’s opinion, then we emphatically disagree with
      him and go over to the side of “fantasy” (actually, not to the
      side of fantasy, of course, but to that of a more profound criticism of
      capitalism). The view that the idea of abolishing the antithesis between
      town and country is a fantasy is not new by any means. It is the ordinary
      view of the bourgeois economists. It has even been borrowed by several
      writers with a more profound outlook. For ex ample, Dühring was of
      the opinion that antagonism between town and country “is inevitable
      by the very nature of things.”

Further,Mr. Bulgakov is “astonished” (I) at the fact that
      Kautsky refers to the growing incidence of epidemics among plants and
      animals as one of the difficulties confronting commercial agriculture and
      capitalism. “What has this to do with capitalism...?” asks
      Mr. Bulgakov. “Could any higher social organisation abolish the
      necessity of improving the breeds of cattle?” We in our turn are
      astonished at Mr. Bulgakov’s failure to understand Kautsky’s perfectly
      clear idea. The old breeds of plants and animals created by natural
      selection are being superseded by “improved” breeds created by
      artificial selection. Plants and animals are be coming more susceptible
      and more demanding; with the present means of communication epidemics
      spread with astonishing rapidity. Meanwhile, farming remains individual,
      scattered, frequently small (peasant) farming, lacking knowledge and
      resources. Urban capitalism strives to provide all the resources of modern
      science for the development of the technique of agriculture, but it leaves
      the social position of the producers at the old miserable level; it does
      not systematically and methodically transplant urban culture to the rural
      districts. No higher social organisation willabolish the necessity of improving the breeds of cattle (and Kautsky, of
      course, did not think of saying anything so absurd); but the more
      technique develops, the more susceptible the breeds of cattle and

      plants[5]become, the more the present capitalist social organisation suffers from
      lack of social control and from the degraded state of the peasants and
      workers.

Thelast “difficulty” confronting commercial agriculture that
      Kautsky mentions is the “depopulation of the countryside,” the
      absorption by the towns of the best, the most energetic and most
      intelligent labour forces. Mr. Bulgakov is of the opinion that in its
      general form this proposition “is at all events incorrect,” that
      “the present development of the urban at the expense of the rural
      population in no sense expresses a law of development of capitalist
      agriculture,” but the migration of the agricultural population of
      industrial, exporting countries overseas, to the colonies. I think that
      Mr. Bulgakov is mistaken. The growth of the urban (more generally:
      industrial) population atthe expense ofthe rural population is
      not only a present-day phenomenon but a general phenomenon which expressesprecisely the lawof capitalism. The theoretical grounds of this
      law are, as I have pointed out

      elsewhere,[6]first, that the growth of social division of labour wrests from primitive
      agriculture an increasing number of branches of

      industry,[7]and,secondly, that the variable capital required to work a given plot of land,
      on the whole, diminishes (cf.Das Kapital, III, 2, S. 177;
      Russian translation,

p. 526,[16]which I quote In my hook,The
      Development of Capitalism, pp. 4 and

      444[8]).

      We have indicated above
      that in certain cases and certain periods we observed an increase in the
      variable capital required for the cultivation of a given plot of land; but
      this does not affect the correctness of the general law. Kautsky, of
      course, would not think of denying that not in every case does the
      relative diminution of the agricultural population become absolute
      diminution; that the degree of this absolute diminution is also determined
      by the growth of capitalist colonies. In relevant places in his book
      Kautsky very clearly points to this growth of capitalist colonies which
      flood Europe with cheap grain. (“The flight from the land of the
      rural population(Landflucht) which leads to the depopulation of
      the European countryside, constantly brings, not only to the towns, but
      also to the colonies, fresh crowds of robust country dwellers...” S. 242.)
      The phenomenon of industry depriving agriculture of its strongest, most
      energetic, and most intelligent workers is general, not only in
      industrial, but also In agricultural, countries; not only in Western
      Europe, but also in America and in Russia. The contradiction between the
      culture of the towns and the barbarism of the countryside which capitalism
      creates inevitably leads to this. The “argument” that
      “a decrease in the agricultural population side by side with a
      general increase in the population is inconceivable without the
      importation of large quantities of grain” is, in Mr. Bulgakov’s
      opinion, “obvious.” But in my opinion this argument is not only not
      obvious, but wrong. A decrease in the agricultural population side by side
      with a general increase in the population (growth of the towns) is quite
      conceivable without grain imports (the productivity of agricultural labour
      in creases and this enables a smaller number of workers to produce as much
      as and even more than was formerly produced). A general increase in the
      population parallel with adecrease in the agricultural population and a decrease (or a
      disproportionate increase) in the quantity of agricultural products is
      also conceivable —“conceivable” because the nourishment
      of the people has deteriorated under capitalism.

Mr.Bulgakov asserts that the increase of the medium- sized peasant farms
      in Germany in the period 1882-95, a fact established by Kautsky, which he
      connected with the other fact that these farms suffer least from a
      shortage of labour, “is capable of shaking the whole
      structure” of Kautsky’s argument. Let us examine Kautsky’s
      statements more closely.

Accordingto agricultural statistics, the largest increase in area in the
      period 1882-95 occurred in the farms of from 5 to 20 hectares. In 1882
      these farms occupied 28.8 per cent of the total area of all farms and in
      1895, 29.9 per cent. This increase in the total area of medium-sized
      peasant farms was accompanied by a decrease in the area of big peasant
      farms (20 to 100 hectares; 1882—31.1 per cent, 1895—30.3 per
      cent). “These figures,” says Kautsky, “glad den the hearts of
      all good citizens who regard the peasantry as the strongest bulwark of the
      present system. ’And so, it does not move, this agriculture,’ they exclaim
      in triumph; ’Marx’s dogma does not apply to it."’ This increase in the
      medium-sized peasant farms is interpreted as the beginning of a new era of
      prosperity for peasant farming.

“Butthis prosperity is rooted in a bog,” Kautsky replies to these
      good citizens. “It arises, not out of thewell-beingof the
      peasantry, but out of thedepressionof agriculture as a
      whole” (230). Shortly before this Kautsky said that, “not
      withstanding all the technical progress which has been made,In some
      places[Kautsky’s italics] there is a decline in agriculture; there
      can be no doubt of that” (228). This decline is leading, for
      example, to the revival of feudalism—to attempts to tie the workers
      to the land and impose certain duties upon them. Is it surprising that
      backward forms of agriculture should revive on the soil of this
      “depression”? That the peasantry, which in general is distinguished
      from workers employed in large-scale production by its lower level of
      requirements, greater ability to starve, and greater exertion while at
      work, can hold out longer during acrisis?[9]“The agrarian crisis affects all agricultural classes that produce
      commodities; it does not stop at the middle peasant” (S. 231).

Onewould think that all these propositions of Kautsky are so clear that
      it is impossible not to understand them. Nevertheless, the critic has
      evidently failed to understand them. Mr. Bulgakov does not come forward
      with an opinion:
      he does not tell us how he explains this increase in the medium-sizedpeasant farms, but he ascribes to Kautsky the opinion that “the
      development of the capitalist mode of production is ruining agriculture.”
      And Mr. Bulgakov exclaims angrily:

      “Kautsky’s assertion that agriculture is being destroyed is wrong,
      arbitrary, unproved, and contradicts all the main facts of reality,” etc.,
      etc.

Tothis we can only say that Mr. Bulgakovconveys Kautsky’s ideas
	altogether incorrectly.Kautsky does not state that the development
	of capitalism is ruining agriculture; he says the opposite. Only by
	being very inattentive in reading Kautsky’s book can one deduce from his
	words on the depression (=crisis) in agriculture and on the technical
	retrogression to be observedin some places(nota
	bene) that he speaks of the “destruction,” the
	“doom” of agriculture. In Chapter X, which deals especially
	with the question of over seas competition (i.e., the main reason for
	the agrarian crisis), Kautsky says: “The impending crisis, of
	course(natürlich), need not necessarily(braucht
	nicht) ruin the industry which it affects. It does so only in very
	rare cases. As a general rule, a crisis merely causes a change in the
	existing property relations in the capitalist sense”
	(273-74). This observation made in connection with the crisis in the
	agricultural industries clearly reveals Kautsky’s general view of the
	significance of a crisis. In the same chapter Kautsky again expresses
	the view in relation to the whole of agriculture: “What has been
	said above does not give one the least right to speak about the doom of
	agriculture(Man braucht deswegen noch langenlcht von einem
	Untergang der Landwirtschaft zu sprechen), but where the modern
	mode of production has taken a firm hold its conservative character has
	disappeared for ever. The continuation of the old routine(das
	Verharren beim Alten) means certain ruin for the farmer; he must
	constantly watch the development of technique and continuously adapt his
	methods of production to the new conditions.... Even in the rural
	districts economic life, which hitherto has with strict uniformity moved
	in an eternal rut, has dropped into a state of constant
	revolutionisation, a state that is characteristic of the capitalist mode
	of production” (289).

Mr.Bulgakov “does not understand” how trends toward the
      development of productive forces in agriculture can be combinedwith trends that increase the difficulties of commercial agriculture. What
      is there unintelligible in this? Capitalism in both agriculture and
      industry gives an enormous impetus to the development of productive
      forces; but it is precisely this development which, the more it proceeds,
      causes the contradictions of capitalism to become more acute and creates
      new “difficulties” for the system. Kautsky develops one of the
      fundamental ideas of Marx, who categorically emphasised the progressive
      historical role of agricultural capitalism (the rationalisation of
      agriculture, the separation of the land from the farmer, the emancipation
      of the rural population from the relations of master and slave, etc.), at
      the same time no less categorically pointing to the impoverishment and
      oppression of the direct producers and to the fact that capitalism is
      incompatible with the requirements of rational agriculture. It is very
      strange indeed that Mr. Bulgakov, who admits that his “general
      social-philosophic world outlook is the same as

      Kautsky’s,”[10]should fail
      to note that Kautsky here develops a fundamental idea of Marx. The readers
      ofNachalomust inevitably remain in perplexity over
      Mr. Bulgakov’s attitude towards these fundamental ideas and wonder how, in
      view of the identity of their general world outlook, he can say:“De principiis non est

	disputandum”!!?[11]We permit
      ourselves not to believe Mr. Bulgakov’s statement; we consider that an
      argument between him and other Marxists is possible precisely because of
      the community of these “principia.” In saying that
      capitalism rationalises agriculture and that industry provides machinery
      for agriculture, etc., Mr. Bulgakov merely repeats one of these
      “principia.” Only he should not have said “quite the
      opposite” in this connection. Readers might think that Kautsky holds
      a different opinion, whereas he very emphatically and definitely develops
      these fundamental ideas of Marx in his book. He says: “It is
      precisely industry which has created the technical and scientific
      conditions for new, rational agriculture. It is precisely industry which
      has revolutionised agriculture by means of machinesand artificial fertilisers, by means of the microscope and the chemical
      laboratory, giving rise in this way to the technical superiority of
      large-scale capitalist production over small- scale, peasant
      production” (S. 292). Thus, Kautsky does not fall into the
      contradiction in which we find Mr. Bulgakov bogged: on the one hand,
      Mr. Bulgakov admits that “capitalism [i.e., production carried on
      with the aid of wage- labour, i.e., not peasant, but large-scale
      production?] rationalises agriculture,” while on the other, he argues that
      “it is not large-scale production which is the vehicle of this
      technical progress”!

ChapterX of Kautsky’s book deals with the question of overseas
      competition and the industrialisation of agriculture. Mr. Bulgakov treats
      this chapter in a very offhand manner: “Nothing particularly new or
      original, more or less well-known main facts,” etc., he says, leaving in
      the background the fundamental question of the conception of the agrarian
      crisis, its essence and significance. And yet this question is of enormous
      theoretical importance.

Theconception of the agrarian crisis inevitably follows from the general
      conception of agrarian evolution which Marx presented and on which Kautsky
      enlarges in detail. Kautsky sees the essence of the agrarian crisis in the
      fact that, owing to the competition of countries which produce very cheap
      grain, agriculture in Europe has lost the opportunity of shifting to the
      masses of consumers the burdens imposed on it by the private ownership of
      land and capitalist commodity production. From now on agriculture in
      Europe “must itself bear them[these burdens],and this
      is what the present agrarian crisis amounts to”(S. 239,
      Kautsky’s italics). Ground rent is the main burden. In Europe, ground rent
      has been raised by preceding historical development to an extremely high
      level (both differential andabsoluterent) and is fixed in the
      price of

      land.[12]On the other hand, inthe colonies (America, Argentina, and others), insofar as they remain
      colonies, we seefreeland occupied by new settlers, either
      entirely gratis or for an insignificant price; more over, the virginal
      fertility of this land reduces production costs to a minimum. Up to now,
      capitalist agriculture in Europe has quite naturally transferred the
      burden of excessively high rents to the consumer (in the form of high
      grain prices); now, however, the burden of these rents falls upon the
      farmers and the landowners themselves and ruins

      them.[13]Thus, the agrarian
      crisis has upset, and continues to upset, the prosperity which capitalist
      landed property and capitalist agriculture formerly enjoyed. Hitherto
      capitalist landed property has exacted an ever-increasing tribute from
      social development; and it fixed the level of this tribute in the price of
      land. Now it has to forego this

      tribute.[14]Capitalist agriculture has now
      been reduced to the state of instability that is characteristic of
      capitalist industry and is compelled to adapt itself to new market
      conditions. Like every crisis, the agrarian crisis is ruining a large
      number of farmers, is bringing about important changes in the established
      property relations, andin some placesis leading to technical
      retrogression, to the revival of medieval relations and forms of
      economy. Taken as a whole, however, it isacceleratingsocial
      evolution, ejecting patriarchal stagnation from its last refuge, and
      making necessary the further specialisation of agriculture (a principal
      factor of agricultural progress in capitalist society), the further
      application of machinery, etc. On the whole, as Kautsky shows by datafor several countries, in Chapter IV of his book,evenin Western
      Europe, instead of the stagnation in agriculture in the period 1880-90, we
      see technical progress. We sayevenin Western Europe, because in
      America, for example, this progress is still more marked.

Inshort, there are no grounds for regarding the agrarian crisis as an
      obstacle to capitalism and capitalist development.

[1]Kautsky emphatically expressed his opposition to every medieval
      restriction upon the mobilisation of the land, to entailment(fideicommissum, Anerbenrecht), and to the preservation of the
      medieval peasant commune (S. 332), etc.
    —Lenin

[2]Cf. also S. 214, where Kautsky discusses the role urban capital plays in
      the rationalisation of agriculture.
    —Lenin

[3]Let the reader compare Kautsky’s clear statement as quoted above with the
      following “critical” remark by Mr. Bulgakov: “If Kautsky
      regards the giving of grain to the non-agricultural population by direct
      grain p reducers as exploitation,” etc. One cannot believe that a critic
      who has read Kautsky’s book at all attentively could have written that
      “if”!
    —Lenin

[4]It goes without saying that the opinion that it is necessary to abolish
      the antithesis between town and country in a society of associated
      producers does not in the least contradict the admission that the
      attraction of the population to industry from agriculture plays ahistoricallyprogressive role. I had occasion to discuss this
      elsewhere (Studies, p. 81, footnote 69). (See present edition,
      Vol. 2, p. 229.—Ed.)
    —Lenin

[5]That is why in the practical part of his book Kautsky recommends the
      sanitary inspection of cattle and of the conditions of their maintenance
      (S. 397).
    —Lenin

[6]The Development of Capitalism in Russia, Chapter I, Section II,
      and Chapter VIII, Section II. (See present edition,
      Vol. 3.—Ed.)
    —Lenin

[7]Pointing to this circumstance, Mr. Bulgakov says that “the
      agricultural population may diminishrelatively[his italics]
      even when agriculture is flourishing.” Not only “may,” butnecessarily mustin capitalist society.... “The relative
      diminution [of the agricultural population] merely(sic!)
      indicates here a growth of new branches of people’s labour,” concludes
      Mr. Bulgakov.That “merely” is very strange. New branches of
      industry do actually withdraw “the most energetic and most
      intelligent labour forces” from agriculture. Thus, this simple
      reason is sufficient to enable one to accept Kautsky’s general thesis as
      beingfully correct:therelativediminution of the
      rural population sufficiently confirms the correctness of the general
      thesis (that capitalism withdraws the most energetic and most intelligent
      labour forces from agriculture).
    —Lenin

[8]See present edition, Vol. 3, pp. 40, 561.—Ed.

[9]Kautsky says elsewhere: “The small farmers hold out longer in a
      hopeless position. We have every reason to doubt that this is an advantage
      of small-scale production” (S. 134).

Inpassing, let us mention data fully confirming Kautsky’s view that are
      given by Koenig in his book, in which he describes in detail the condition
      of English agriculture in a number of typical counties(Die Lage der
      englischen Landwirtschaft, etc. [The Condition of English Agriculture,
      etc.], Jena, 1896, von Dr. F. Koenig). In this book we findany
      amountof evidence of overwork and under-consumption on the part of
      the small farmers, as compared with hired labourers, but no evidence of
      the opposite. We read, for instance, that the small farms pay
      “because of immence(ungeheuer)diligence and frugality” (88); the farm buildings of the small
      farmers are inferior (107); the small landowners (yeoman farmers[these words are in English in the original.—Ed.])are worse
      off than the tenant farmers (149); “their conditions are very
      miserable (in Lincolnshire), their cottages being worse than those of the
      labourers employed on the big farms, and some are in a very bad state. The
      small landowners work harder and for longer hours than ordinary labourers,
      but they earn less. They live more poorly and eat less meat ... their sons
      and daughters work without pay and are badly clothed”
      (157). “The small farmers work like slaves; in the sum mer they
      often work from 3 a.m. to 9 p.m.” (a report of the Chamber of Agriculture
      in Boston, S. 158). “Without a doubt,” says a big farmer, “the
      small man (der kleine Mann), who has little capital and on whose
      farm all the work is done by members of his family, finds it easier to cut
      down housekeeping expenses, while the big farmer must feed his labourers
      equally well in bad years and good” (218). The small farmers (in
      Ayrshire) “are extraordinarily (ungeheuer) diligent; their
      wives and children do no less, and often more, work than the day
      labourers; it is said that two of them will do as much work in a day as
      three hired labourers” (231). “The life of the small tenant
      farmer, who must work with his whole family, is the life of a slave”
      (253). “Taken as a whole... the small farmers have evidently
      withstood the crisis better than the big farmers; but this does not imply
      that the small farm is more profitable. The reason, in our opinion, is
      that the small man (der kleine Mann) utilises the unpaid
      assistance of his family.... Usually ... the whole family of the small
      farmer works on the farm.... The children are fed and clothed, and only
      rarely do they get a definite daily wage” (277-78), etc., etc.
    —Lenin

[10]As for the philosophic world outlook, we do not know whether what
      Mr. Bulgakov says is true. Kautsky does not seem to be an adherent of the
      critical philosophy, as Mr. Bulgakov is.
    —Lenin

[11]In matters of principle there is no disputing.—Ed.

[12]For the process of inflating and fixing rent see the
      apt remarks of Parvus inThe World Market and the Agricultural
      Crisis.Parvus shares Kautsky’s main views on the crisis and on the
      agrarian question generally.
    —Lenin

[13]Parvus, op. cit., p. 141, quoted in a review of Parvus’ book inNachalo, No. 3, p. 117. (See present volume,
      p. 66.—Ed.) We should add that the other
      “difficulties” of commercial agriculture confronting Europe
      affect the colonies to an incomparably smaller degree.
    —Lenin

[14]Absolute rent is the result of monopoly. “Fortunately, there is a
      limit to the raising of absolute rent....Until recent times it rose
      steadily in Europe in the same way as differential rent. But overseas
      competition bas undermined this monopoly to a very considerable extent. We
      have no grounds for thinking that differential rent in Europe has suffered
      as a result of overseas competition, except for a few counties in
      England.... But absolute rent has dropped, and this has benefited (zu
      gute gekommen) primarily the working classes” (S. 80; cf. also
      S. 328).
    —Lenin

[15]Fideicommissum—entailment of an estate. Under this system a
      landed estate passed to the eldest son of the testator and could not be
      mortgaged; divided, or soldin parteorin toto.

Anerbenrecht—apeasant variant offideicommissumwhich gave the landed proprietor a somewhat greater right in respect of
      the inherited estate but which forbade the division of the
      inheritance. p. 146

[16]Karl Marx,Capital, Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 622.